Lilly's 6th

We're going to play a little bit of catch-up here on the Barnum family blog, okay?   I'm so fabulously on the ball when it comes to this lovely patch of cyber-space that we're going to go all the way back to May 11th. 
May 11th was Lilly's 6th birthday.  As you may have guessed, this post will probably be a bit lengthy.  So, here we go....
In Lilly's kindergarten class, instead of celebrating their birthday, her teacher does what is called their "Everyday Hero".  She usually tries to have it on their birthday to help make the day special.  Lilly was highlighted at the beginning of class.  She filled out a paper about all of her favorite things.  One that made me smile was that her favorite thing to do is "Cuddle with Daddy and watch a movie".  She's a daddy's girl through and through! 
The Everyday Hero also gets to bring their favorite book for Miss Farmer to read and can bring a small treat for the class. 
Miss Farmer also has the kids talk about why they think the Everyday Hero child is a hero to their class.  The kids said that Lilly is a good example, follows the rules, and is a friend to everyone.  

Lilly with Ms. Farmer during her Everyday Hero presentation

We've started a tradition where the kids get to choose something fun for our family to do together to celebrate their birthday.  With Nate's work schedule, he's usually working during the family dinners that we do on the weekend after their birthday.  So this way, he gets to help us celebrate too.  Lilly chose to go to Chuck E. Cheese.  We had never braved Chuck E. Cheese before and I'm not going to lie....I was NOT looking forward to it.  We've kind of avoided it like the plague.  We went on a Wednesday afternoon around 4:00 PM to avoid the crowds.  The place was virtually empty and the kids had a great time.  It's still not my favorite place to go, but it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it in my head.  Think screaming children, germs everywhere, and lots of loud music.  Yeah, it was pretty mellow compared to that, thank goodness.  I didn't get any good pictures though.  Sorry, you'll just have to imagine how cute they all were playing the arcade games and the insane amount of time it took them to decide what prizes to get with their tickets.

Lilly's Aunt Rachel moved to California this year.  She sent Lilly a birthday package in the mail.  It was so exciting for the kids to see the box on the porch and open it up.  Here's a picture of them with all the fun stuff Aunt Rachel sent.

New flip-flops for everyone, an outfit for Lilly, and a fun sprinkler/hopscotch/water thing to play in

 Then, on Saturday, we had her family dinner with Grandma Laurie, Grandma Great, and aunts and uncles.  As usual, Lilly got a lot of fun gifts and enjoyed all the attention.

Lilly chose chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and pink writing.  As you can probably tell, she's all about pink these days.  On her birthday she wore all pink to school and here she's wearing her pink cupcake dress from Grandma and Grandpa Barnum and a pink princess hat. 

So there you have it.  Our sweet Lilly is another year older and wiser too! We're truly grateful to have her in our family.  She has such a positive personality, loves to be helpful, and truly is a friend to everyone.